Voter Registration

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

Each citizen must appear in person to register to vote with their local voting district. A voting district can process voter registration in conjunction with other administrative functions such as obtaining a state identification card, a motor vehicle license, applying for a passport, or receiving welfare, where the required elements are present – the person is present, has valid identification documents, and has valid proof of residence.

A voter registration is valid for at most 10 years and renewal must be in person.

A voter must update their registration or submit a new registration whenever they change their permanent residence.

The local registrar must confirm evidence of citizenship and proof of residence for each person who is registered to vote.

It should be a felony for anyone to knowingly transmit a false registration or de-registration to any registrar or secretary of state.

Intent:

Voting is for citizens. A person claiming to be a citizen should be able to provide evidence of this, such as a birth certificate and state identification, passport, naturalization certificate or other documents. It is the voter’s responsibility provide this evidence. However, a registrar who already has access to evidence should not unnecessarily burden voters to obtain and confirm the evidence.

The limited duration of a voter registration is intended to limit the possibility that someone can cast a ballot on behalf of a deceased or moved-out-of-the-district voter.

The registrar should also check with other districts to ensure the person is only registered to vote in a single district for an election. The most recent valid registration should replace any prior registrations.

Discussion:

Government offices have records of documents they issue to citizens. Therefore, if a citizen has lost their documents it is possible to recover. It is the citizen’s responsibility to keep a copy of their documents in a safe place. If they don’t, and they miss an election because they didn’t have evidence and they moved to a new district where they weren’t already registered, that is their consequence, and they can recover and vote in the next election.

The local registrar must share new voting registrations with the secretary of state. The secretary of state must maintain a roster of all voter registrations in the state. When a voter moves to a new district and registers there, and the registrar informs the secretary of state, the secretary of state must notify the voter’s prior district and that district, upon notification that a voter has registered elsewhere, must remove that voter from its rolls. If the voter’s last residence was in a different state, the secretary of state must inform the secretary of state of the voter’s last residence, who would then transmit the de-registration to that voter’s last voting district.

It is not a crime for a person to register in multiple locations in sequence, because people are free to move and change their residence, but only their most recent valid registration should be usable. It should be a felony to knowingly register in multiple districts with intent to vote multiple times in the same election, but the prosecutor must prove that the person knew that this was happening, to avoid convicting someone who was framed by someone else registering them in multiple districts. To assist in proving this beyond a reasonable doubt, and also in clearing the name of anyone who was framed for this crime, voter registration must be in person and a photo must be taken of the person registering to vote.

See also voter eligibility.

Voter suppression

Some people claim that demanding evidence of citizenship to register to vote is a form of voter suppression, but this argument is weak. Election regulations exist to ensure the integrity of the election. Only citizens who are residents of the voting district are allowed to cast their vote there. Therefore, checking citizenship and residency status is an obvious and effective way to ensure that only eligible citizens are voting, and can be enhanced with other practices such as sharing voting registrations with other districts and states to identify anyone who registered multiple times and only allow them to vote using their most recent valid registration.

Furthermore, since this topic has been discussed for many years, it should not be news to anyone that only citizens are eligible to vote and if someone doesn’t have their documents to register in the current election, they can work on recovering their documents so they can participate in the next election.

It is possible for corrupt officials to attempt to suppress votes of the other party by changing a rule shortly before the election such that voters who are likely to vote for the other party would have a higher obstacle to vote. Requiring evidence of citizenship is just one possible obstacle that could be implemented this way just before an election. For this reason, there should be a limit about how close to the election a rule can be changed (and some states do have such limits). The best time to implement rule changes is immediately after an election so that everyone has time to adjust before the next election.

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